I love when someone tells me that something is “simple, but not easy.” Many of the best things in life fit this saying. Fitness. Nutrition. Confidence. Meeting women. Day game. These areas have simple rules for success, and then they require hard work applying those rules.

Expert performance is the same way. It’s simple, but not easy. How simple? The path to becoming an expert can be broken down into three steps that anyone can understand and apply immediately.

1. Focus

This doesn’t mean a general sense of focus. This is referring to taking a microscope on the skills that comprise expert performance. In this step, you break down the skills required of an expert into components you can do repeatedly.

An example of this concept for approaching looks like this:

Describe signals women give off that demonstrates they want to be approached

Being able to prepare meals that will help you reach your health goals

etc.

Any individual skill that seems daunting to master becomes simple when you break it down into the tiniest components possible. Instead of asking big questions like “How do I get better at dating?”, ask little questions like “What is something I can do today in 5 minutes that will make me more attractive?”

2. Feedback

There are two ways to get feedback when you’re developing a skill. The first is to analyze your performance and pay attention to the result. If you go out and approach 15 women and 14 tell you that they have boyfriends, that’s a piece of information you can use to assess your skills. If you attempt a new type of joke in a conversation and get a big laugh from it, that’s another piece of information. Every micro-bit of information you gain in actual conversational practice teaches you something about whether your actions are working, or if you need to correct something.

The other method of obtaining feedback is to have a coach or mentor who can do this for you. Self-experimentation and practice is essential to becoming an expert, but it can’t ever happen at the same rate as when you work with a coach. Learning from a true expert gives you all the advantages of years of experience and highly developed mental models. They can take knowledge from their vast range of experiences and provide you with all the specific cues that you need to be successful.

Osmosis is a powerful concept that’s related. You gain feedback automatically when you surround yourself with people who are successful in the areas you’re working on.

3. Fix it

You get good at things by practicing your skills, applying them effectively, assessing the results, and by modifying as needed. Gaining confidence is a process of constant iteration. When you’ve determined your weaknesses, either on your own or with a coach, the next step is to figure out ways to address them.

This is actually a straightforward process when you’ve broken each skill into the smallest possible parts. If you say one line and you don’t get a good reaction, it’s easy to go out and practice that line multiple times, changing little things about it each time. You can change your delivery, you can change your facial expressions, and you can change the situation you deliver it in. By constantly iterating on this skill, you will slowly learn what works and what doesn’t work.

That’s how experts are created. The difference between an expert and a beginner lies in their mental models of their skill. Everyone has ideas about how a skill should be performed, and beliefs about the natural state of the world in relation to that skill. An expert just has much more thoroughly detailed mental models compared to a beginner, and the expert has a lot more models.

These models are developed through real-world feedback, the kind that the 3 F’s make simple.

One of the biggest influences during my childhood wasn’t a part of my family, schooling, or friends. It was my soccer coach, Brian Malloy. As a child, I was always willing to listen to what he said. He was a major part of my life. He pushed me to be a better teammate, a better player, and to achieve success in and out of the classroom. My life would be drastically different without his coaching in my adolescence.

During adulthood, I lost the understanding of how valuable a coach can be. Growing up I needed people who saw the world differently and pushed me to be my best, so why not as an adult?

During my mid-20s, life started to stagnate. I thought I knew it all. I thought my career was great, I was in decent shape, and I was a great friend and lover. I was lying to myself.

I was not as successful in my career, fitness, and social and dating as I thought. My classroom was a mess, I was overweight and out of shape, and getting ZERO dates. But through coaching, I got my life back on track and pushed myself to be the man I strive to be.

I had several years of teaching experience and a master’s degree. At all outside appearances I was successful, but the feeling in my classroom was different. I had behavior management issues it was causing major problems for my students’ learning.

Craig Sini and I started working together. He was in my classroom every day and making observations. It was pretty excruciating to think I would be judged on a daily basis. However, his attitude was inspiring. I decided to let go and do what he said. I’d implement his suggestions and my class would improve. Through working with him, I slowly but surely developed into the teacher I wanted to be. He provided positive reinforcement, celebrated my successes, and pushed me to improve my teaching strategies.

At this time, I was overweight and disappointed with my physical health. My good friend Danny was constantly asking me to join Crossfit. One day I just said yes. After inconsistently going to the gy for the previous two years, I had a lot of work to do. My coach Steve was there to push me. I couldn’t do a pull-up when I first started, so he would place supports for me which were gradually removed until I could do one independently. He talked to me about nutrition, taking care of myself, and living a healthy lifestyle. He constantly provided feedback and was a positive support to get my health back on track.

Even though I was finding more success in these areas of my life, I was still struggling socially and in my dating life. Though I had never really been sold on the concept of a dating coach or a confidence coach, I met Robbie Kramer through a good friend, and it changed my life.

Simply by talking about my dating life, he forced me to be honest with myself. I was not dating the women I wanted to be dating. I was pushed to think about friendships and how I provide value. I was pushed to day game. Many times I would see a woman on the street, and have too much fear and lack of knowledge of what to say or do. Robbie not only gave me strategies but also pushed me to go out and do it. With his support and others in our group, I started getting more dates with women I want and created better friendships and relationships that have improved my life drastically.

(That’s Cameron, Robbie, me and Hippie together on the Leverage Trip In Budapest, Hungary)

As a child, I always understood the need for a coach. We need someone to make substitutions, design tactics, and push us to play our best. Now as an adult, I have come to understand the huge value of coaches in all aspects of my life. Craig pushed me to be a better teacher, Steve pushed me to improve my physical health, and Robbie Kramer pushed me to improve my social and dating life. All of them helped me live a fulfilling live based on my values, and be the man I strive to be.

Our society does a great job of instilling shame in men. Growing up as kids, and even into our adult lives, we’re told toxic messages that can hold us back for a lifetime.

Sometimes this shame originates from the people around us. Our parents or friends tell us these messages explicitly: that guy’s a player and you shouldn’t be like that. Or they could be more subtle messages from the media and movies: in order to get a girl to like you, you need to be nice and submissive.

People mean well when they give us this kind of advice. Despite their good intentions, they miss how these messages teach men that their desires are unacceptable, and that being masculine is a bad character trait. Compound this with all the men who have grown up without a strong father figure, and things get even worse.

As a result, men today are scared. They’re scared to approach beautiful women. They’re scared to be masculine for fear of stepping on toes. They’re scared to express who they really are. They’re afraid of meeting women. They live their lives devoid of meaningful companionships, opting instead for the comforting yet numb experiences of internet porn and video games. They walk on eggshells and don’t express themselves.

Men have become deathly afraid of getting rejected by women.

You don’t have to live this way.
It’s ok to be a sexual being.
It’s ok to want to sleep with hot women.
It’s ok to want to sleep with multiple women.
It’s ok to express your desires, feelings, and fears honestly and openly.It’s ok to be rejected.

What’s the antidote for feeling scared and weak? It’s being a man and facing your fears head-on. With dating, that means getting rejected.

Learning to deal with rejection teaches you how to be a man. Part of being a confident, masculine being is accepting that sometimes things don’t go our way, and being composed when the inevitable disappointments occur.

Connection and companionship give more purpose and meaning to our lives than anything else. You must get rejected to find and create meaningful these relationships with women. Relationships are built on vulnerability. You can’t be vulnerable without risking rejection.

The ONLY way to get better with women is to get rejected more. I wish there was a “hack” or a way around it, but sorry, there just isn’t. Robbie is better with women than anyone you know because he has been rejected more times than anyone you know. And even a guy like Robbie will only expect to connect with about 3 or 4 women out of 10 during day game.

But if there was anything that’s close to a shortcut, it’s this:

The fear of rejection hurts more than actually getting rejected.

Anxiety doesn’t exist in the present moment. Anxiety is only something you feel about the future. When you’re actually feeling it in the present, it’s only fear, which is much easier to deal with. Any amount of fear is something you can and will live through.

The pain of rejection is a short-term experience. Pain is what you experience when you push yourself outside your comfort zone. Think of the struggle of a hard workout at the gym. It’s uncomfortable while you’re experiencing it, but it goes away. You become stronger as a result.

Our minds are amazingly skilled at (wrongly) anticipating how bad it would feel to get rejected. They jump to conclusions, and imagine the worst possible scenario where everyone is watching you, and where you’ll run into the girl you approached again and be embarrassed.

Fortunately, that’s not how it goes. A girl who isn’t interested moves on and forgets about the interaction. Unless you choose to ruminate on it, you do too. You learn something you can use next time. It’s never as bad as you expect it to be.

You will always thank yourself later for being vulnerable and improving your social skills.

There is rarely a downside to being assertive and asking for what you want. The happiest, most fulfilled men are the ones who go after everything they value in life, and it’s not a coincidence that these men are the ones that women are the most drawn to.

The men who get rejected the most are the ones who succeed the most, and so getting rejected is crucial to your dating success.

When things don’t go your way, it’s easy to place the blame on anything but yourself. It’s a natural reaction for most people.

Didn’t get that promotion? Boss must have it in for you. Car accident? You’re a perfect driver so it was the other guy’s fault. Can’t lose weight? Bad genetics.

While it’s easy to say this is bad, this tendency has some value. It can serve as a psychological defense mechanism that prevents people from thinking depressing thoughts. If we were to act as if everything negative in our lives is our fault, we’d get overwhelmed and depressed, so it’s understandable why people shield their egos by externalizing the blame for bad events.

But what happens when we take the opposite action, and accept responsibility for the ways that our lives suck? It’s not what most expect. People who decide to do this don’t get depressed. In fact, psychologists have done studies that demonstrate that people who take personal responsibility for the bad things in their life are actually happier and better at reaching their goals than people who have believable, external reasons for the bad things that happen to them.

Why is that? When we take responsibility for our role in a negative situation, we can then take action to fix it.

Another example: you approach a girl and she says she can’t talk because she’s in a hurry. Guy A externalizes the outcome of the situation, and says that it’s likely she really is in a hurry. It’s believable and understandable. Guy B assumes it’s his fault she wants to leave, taking responsibility.

In a situation like this, it’s probably equally likely that each of them is correct. But play this situation out 100 times. Who will be a better conversationalist after the 100th time this happens? Clearly Guy B will have an advantage, because he will have adapted his behavior to better fit the situation.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter who was actually correct. What matters is that Guy B assumed he had some responsibility, so was able to grow from it. Even if it was only 5% his fault the girl wanted to leave, he will STILL end up in a better situation after repeating this. Being objective takes your ego out of the equation.

The next time something doesn’t go the way you want it to, look objectively at the situation. You are not a victim. Even if only 5% of it was legitimately your fault, you will still be better off by taking complete responsibility for it.

People who constantly have “bad luck” and “accidents” are often objectively different in their behavior from people who seem to always catch lucky breaks. The real difference is that people with “good luck” take responsibility when things go wrong, and people with “bad luck” always have a scapegoat ready.

Let’s revisit those examples we discussed earlier. Guess what, you may be completely right, but unfortunately in life being right often doesn’t matter. Maybe your boss legitimately doesn’t like you; at the end of the day, you’re still making less money. Maybe the car accident was completely the other driver’s fault- the result is that you don’t take any action to avoid similar accidents in the future. Maybe you have the worst genetics in the world- sorry, you’re still fat.

Your life is no better off, despite you being right. Whether or not your excuse is correct, it’s still an excuse. Instead of doing what 99% of people do, be objective when things go wrong and accept some responsibility, because it pays off.

Knowing how to accept feedback when things go wrong is a crucial part of acting like an adult. Most people say they want others to be upfront and tell them the truth, but their behavior doesn’t back up their words. If you want people to tell you the truth, you need to not get defensive or reactive when they give you feedback. If you shoot down their feedback by getting defensive or rebutting it, you’ll stop getting feedback. Getting honest feedback can be difficult, as we often feel it attacks the core of who we are.

I am not a small guy, but I’ve had a unique experience. I am 5’11 170 pounds, and I am only attracted to tall athletic girls, 5’8-5’11. That means that they’re taller than me when they wear heels, so most of the time I meet a woman out, she’ll be taller than me.

Tall girls have issues about being big, but a 6’5, 240 pound guy makes them feel small. Most women who are 5’8 and up want to date really tall guys so they can feel small in their arms.

I am by far the shortest and smallest guy any of my girlfriends has ever dated- they always went very far out of their way to let me know this. I dated a girl who was engaged to a professional baseball player who was 6’5. Another ex was dating a minor league hockey player before me. This dude was the Incredible Hulk. And another ex dated a guy on a college football team who was like 6’6, 230lbs, 8% body fat. Her ex before that played major league baseball.

My current girlfriend, who is the shortest girl I’ve dated in 13 years, was a godsend. She is just under 5’6, so surely she would appreciate how tall I am. Nope! Her ex was 6’8 played pro tennis, and ex before that was 6’3 model.

If you guys think you are somehow in a different boat than me, you are wrong. 5’0-5’5 girls are not an option for me because I’m not attracted to them. That leaves me 5’6-6’0 girls.

By and large 5’11 to 6’0 girls aren’t gong to be into me, so that leaves me 4 inches worth of girls to pull from (remember that 5’9 and 5’10 girls want 6’2+ guys).

I’m in your boat because I’m the “little guy” trying to pull chicks who want much larger guys, so I know what it’s like hitting on taller women. How do I combat this?

Personality. I’m charismatic and confident. Every single girl I’ve ever dated at one point or another has said “I feel so safe with you.” Anyone who knows me knows that I have very clear boundaries and I’ll let people know the second they cross them. I think this is what makes the girls feel like I’m strong and they feel protected (which they all say).

Add in some interesting stories, some mentor game, charisma, appear to be a hot commodity, make sure that there’s nothing visual about you that’s repellent, and suddenly the height factor vanishes.

They don’t see your height. They see your other positive attributes.

My buddy Jeremy is 5’6 and doesn’t have a Napoleon Complex. He is chill and easygoing, but he has a stern voice and it’s clear that if he is pushed he’ll let you know to stop. He has consistently pulled girls his height and taller, and this is what he had to say on the subject:

Although height can be an important factor in attraction, it mainly comes down to protection and feeling safe. That has to do with attitude and confidence. Not attitude in a douchey way, but you need to show you’re somebody who is not a pushover. When you stand up for a girl or someone else in a vulnerable position, women find it incredibly sexy.

Here is what another shorter friend had to say:

I am just over 5’7, I just look even shorter because I’m always hanging out with taller guys. Attitude is everything, but that does not mean being a Napoleon. A lot of shorter guys have SFC (short fucker complex) and try to overcompensate, which only makes it even more clear that you are not confident.

>Women feel safe when they know that you are confident and that you will protect them if necessary, but not when they feel like you go over the top to prove that you’re a man because you’re short. I have very clear boundaries and if you cross them, you’ll be let known in a stern way that exudes confidence but not compensation. I always get the “I feel safe with you” which is simply a function of confidence.

Yes, I consistently pull 5’8 or 5’9 chicks who are much taller than me when in heels. I have to make up for that with personality, charisma, and be more fun and interesting than the taller guys. It is a disadvantage, but if there’s one thing a girl loves more than anything, it’s having fun and laughing. I also think power plays into it too.

If you hang out with the mods in Leverage, you can instantly see that most of the guys in our group can turn the lights on in a room with the air of confidence, power, and charisma. Robbie speaks in front of large groups of people, and you can feel that energy when he walks into a room. There is a level of confidence that communicates you are powerful to a woman. It’s not necessarily what you do for a living, but how you feel about it and how you portray yourself. Find your strengths and leverage them.

So there you have it guys. Height can be a disadvantage, but it’s certainly something that you can overcome by developing your personality and positive attributes.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of letting a girl who isn’t really a good fit for you stick around because she prevents you from feeling lonely.

We all feel lonely at times. It’s part of the human condition. And for guys who aren’t naturally good with women, it’s normal to feel lonely most or even all of the time.

When you start developing your skills, having success is inevitable. You’ll start to get numbers, you’ll start to get dates, you’ll start to make out with women, and you’ll start to sleep with ones you like.

Once you start sleeping with the kinds of women that you like, there’s a critical point where you have to stay on your path. It’s easy to get sucked into a relationship by default, that happens from settling with someone who makes you feel less alone. That feeling of loneliness? The novelty of a new sexual relationship is one powerful way to drown it out.

Too many guys end up dating girls long-term just by default. They never made the conscious decision to do it, but they end up with her because it fills a space in their lives, and the access to sex is a powerful motivator.

What they don’t realize is that space will always be there, and is part of being human. The only thing that you should attempt to use to fill that space is your drive to be better. Part of being a man and accepting your place as an adult is a constant drive for self-improvement. And that emptiness you feel will only get better through your journey of self-improvement, not by a woman.

Friday night dates. Complacency. Stuck banging one girl forever. Not having threesomes. Never traveling. Having the same lame friends. No self-growth. These thoughts seem like a great foundation for a happy relationship, so how could this touching story come to a bad ending?

Now of course if you’re not having these thoughts and are actually completely satisfied in your relationship with zero doubts, regrets, or insecurities, then I’m not talking about you. You’re already winning. However, if you are experiencing these feelings and emotions, stay with me. I’m not going to focus on the negative actions some girls do, because that’s playing the victim game- a game for losers. I’m just going to focus on things from a personal level. Your life is on you. No one else.

Nothing is worse in a relationship than that moment you realize you’re unsatisfied. Even if you get an attractive girlfriend, have a great time for a while, enjoy love, have weird sex, and experience shit together, eventually your insecurities creep back. That little voice in your head comes back and says “Hey motherfucker, I’m still here.” It’s not really noticeable when you’re in the early stages of intimacy, but as the excitement starts to wear off, the thoughts of being unsatisfied start to creep in.

There’s a number of reasons why you might not be satisfied. Your personal social circle isn’t fully developed. Your girlfriend isn’t cool and open-minded to threesomes and other sexual exploration. You feel like you deserve a better girl. You’re not getting better at the things that are important to you. You haven’t traveled and experienced enough. And on and on.

If you’re carrying these thoughts with you while in a relationship, there’s no way that it will have a happy ending, not with all that dissatisfaction. It’s unfair to the girl. No matter what she does, she can never make you happy. It’s literally impossible. The only way you can be fully happy is if you go hard on reaching your full potential and doing everything you actually want to do to resolve these issues.

When I was going through multiple relationships, I’d be initially excited in the honeymoon phase, lose some interest in the middle phase, and then feel married and not giving a fuck by the end of the relationship. The girls were attractive, had cool friends, and liked my personality. But even with all that, I just felt dead every time. I wasn’t satisfied on the inside. My real needs and desires weren’t being fulfilled, and so I wasn’t happy.

After having enough of these girlfriends, I finally started seeing the picture. I wasn’t into monogamy and jealous atmosphere it brought to the relationship. Threesomes and sexual exploration were important to me, but my relationships had been too tightly knit to allow those things to happen. My weekends were being sucked away with Netflix and pointless dates. My social circle was lacking. I wasn’t developing as a man and becoming a winner.

There was a ton of other shit I was unsatisfied with, as far as my self-growth, like lack of traveling and new experiences, poot fitness, bad finances, but one thing was killing me the most. I felt terrible about being unskilled with girls, and never having massive success with women. I was always having to fight hard just to get one girl, feeling like I couldn’t easily replace them or pick the ones I actually wanted. Just because I was able to repeatedly get girlfriends or hook up with a decent amount of girls (between relationships), it hadn’t resolved my deepest insecurity: my lack of skills and confidence with women. I was sick of it.

Even if the girl was cool, I just couldn’t live with the thought of never being 100% of what I could be. I wanted full control over my life. If I never developed myself into a sick individual and started becoming a winner who could actually get with the type of girls I deserved and wanted, I knew I would never be happy. That was the one thing I had to have to be able to die in peace.

When I finally dumped my last girlfriend, it was liberating. I felt relieved. I felt no pain. I gave no fucks. I could focus on my business, my dick (me), 24/7. I immediately improved my career and income. Started getting in shape again. I did some traveling. And more importantly, I finally found the type of coaching I was looking for and started addressing this issue. Have there been roadblocks? Of course. Am I doing the things I want at a high level yet? No. I fell in a couple gutters in the past year and had some hard times. But despite that, I’m pumped and feel alive every day, knowing I’m on track working toward my goals.

Look, I get it. It’s easy to be complacent. Who doesn’t like easy pussy? Your girlfriend might have a cool social circle and you might do cool shit together. But if you’re not satisfied, if you have insecurities and doubts in your head, don’t ignore them, even if your realizations are painful. You gotta dump your girlfriend and handle your shit until you can be satisfied with yourself. That way when you do pick a girl and hang up the jersey, you can do it without any regrets.

Don’t let validation fill the emptiness you feel inside. If you don’t, you’re basically gonna be 49, jacking off to weird porn in the shadows on Sunday at 2pm in your carpeted Downey apartment with erectile dysfunction, thinking about how you wish you had threesomes, had more weird sex, banged more girls, connected with more females, traveled more, did more self development, took more risks, etc. Don’t be that guy.

Validation gives you a temporary high. Settling in an unsatisfying relationship provides you with a dull numbing of that pain. In contrast, allowing yourself to be open and vulnerable rather than settling for whatever provides you validation or comfort, is scary. You’ll feel lost at times. You’ll feel like maybe you aren’t making the right choices, and that maybe you shouldn’t try to improve this area of your life. Your inner voice can be a nagging demon that holds you back.

But look past it. Never accept mediocrity. Understand that these feelings are part of the journey, and that this empty space will only be fulfilled by living a life of your values, and by always striving to be a better version of the man you want to become. No relationship or sexual experience can fill that void. The only thing that will do it is consistent hard work, every day for the rest of your life. That’s what’s truly rewarding and fulfilling about this journey. The relationships you’ll start to form are just a side effect of being a fulfilled man who’s living his purpose.

You’ve read our blog posts on why you should day game, you get the concept, but are you still struggling to connect with girls when you hit on them?

The game changer is that you need to start incorporating day game into your everyday life. Luckily for me, I live in New York City, where the opportunities for day game are endless.

While it is definitely important to set aside some time to go out and practice day game, especially when you’re first starting, your goal should be to incorporate practicing your communication skills on a daily basis. Do this and you will be surprised at how it will impact your life.

Let’s define day game first. Day game is just talking to a girl where it isn’t a generally recognized social practice to do so. Usually when we talk about day game, we mean taking time out of your daily life to hit on girls in the context of deliberately practicing your skills. This is still super important, because if you don’t set aside time to practice your skills, you are not going to grow and develop.

But day game doesn’t have to be limited to specific practice sessions. It can and should be incorporated into your everyday life.

Think about this the next time you see a hot girl. The minute you see someone you’d like to talk to, go do it! In addition to that, I’d also argue that talking to everyone you encounter throughout the day and striking up a conversation is also day game.

You need to turn yourself into a social person, and how can you be a social beast if you aren’t talking to everyone?

Let’s give a few examples of what I’m talking about here. You show up to Starbucks in the morning: while you are ordering you double espresso, don’t just order your drink and move on. Strike up a short conversation with the barista. Ask her what her name is and how her day is going. Ask her for a discount to push yourself outside of your comfort zone.

Or maybe you go to the the same breakfast spot each morning. Ask the guy who’s cooking your bacon, egg, and cheese wrap his name and how his weekend was. This may be all you do the first time you go there, but each day you go back, you are going to start to build a relationship with these people. The conversations will get more interesting. Do this every day and I guarantee that your conversation and day game skills will improve.

Now, when you take your lunch break, you are going to be already warmed up because of your interactions in the morning. Don’t just spend your lunch break grabbing lunch and eating at your desk, go talk to people! I don’t care if it’s the hot girl crossing the street, or the fat guy making your burrito, just talk to them.

Say anything. It doesn’t matter. The more you do it, the more you’ll get feedback, and the better you will get. And expect to suck in the beginning. That’s just how it works, and we’ve all experienced it.

By incorporating day game into your everyday life, you are going to improve your skill 10x. It happens progressively over a long period time, and when you make consistent efforts, you’ll improve before you even realize it. You have to be talking to new people on a daily basis and put yourself outside your comfort zone to grow as a person and improve your skills.

When you look at guys who are great with women, or anyone with peak social awareness, they perform a bunch of smaller actions that add up to an arsenal of social skills. These discrete skills combine to form a killer ability to communicate with others and assertively get what they want.

When we’re teaching you to improve your dating life, we focus on a lot. Accumulating as much practice as you can and playing the “numbers game” is part of it. Developing your character is also part of it, and it can seem overwhelming to go from where you are now to the success you really dream of.

While it’s true that there are millions of little moves you’ve got to understand, it’s also true that what often looks like natural competence with women is the result of daily habits constructed over a long period of time. Guys who do well with women tend to have just naturally absorbed attractive behaviors from role models such as fathers, teammates, coaches, and friends. And one thing guys who are successful have in common is that they never play it safe.

Guys don’t take risks in conversation because they don’t want to piss people off, say the “wrong thing”, or get rejected. So they play it safe, and end up being boring.

When guys want to play it safe, the things they do in one-on-one conversations or in social situations are seeking a reaction, seeking relevance to whatever is being discussed, and to ward off FOMO. They’re seeking validation and avoiding taking risks. It’s easier to force a pity laugh by making a lame, non-risky joke than to take a stand and disagree with others.

It’s easy to say “stop giving a fuck what other people think” but that isn’t actually helpful because it doesn’t tell you what to do instead. Conversations are only hard or scary if you aren’t confident in what you’re discussing, so guys often ask for topics they should discuss. What they’re missing is that no one can tell you what to say. It’s something you have to develop on your own with a lot of practice.

That means a lot of trial and error. That means a lot of putting your foot in your mouth. Everyone starts out saying lame stuff, then they get better. Reading feedback is key, and since humans are naturally social, this happens automatically. You read the feedback of others you interact with and passively develop s sense of pattern recognition around having exciting conversations.

Talk to everyone. A study done at the University of British Columbia showed that if you interact with more people throughout the day, you’ll be happier and have a stronger sense of belonging, and it doesn’t even matter if they’re good friends or just casual acquaintances. Everyone wants to have fun conversations and you can easily be the guy who delivers that experience. Talking to everyone you encounter throughout your day teaches you how to push past fear, and you get tons of reps starting conversations with strangers.

Over time, you’ll start to surprise yourself with the things you say in conversation. You won’t really be sure where they come from, but you’ll spontaneously come up with great, witty content and banter. Being cool is when you’re not easily excitable about stuff that doesn’t involve you, and not being easily excitable in general, and eventually you’ll automatically reach this point.

Do this: Say more crazy stuff and stop trying to play it safe. You’ll get better the more you practice.

You’ve heard me say it over and over, but if you expect to get results and you’re not crushing approaches or already dating multiple women, it’s just not gonna happen.

If you wanna get good at basketball you’ve gotta take a ton of shots right? You can’t expect to show up at the court, stand around with the ball and expect to improve can you?

Well, that’s what many of you guys are doing, and then whining that you suck and the program isn’t working. That line of thinking is actually offensive to guys who have put in the work. Robbie crushed 10k approaches by the time he was in his late 20’s. Now he never has to approach anyone because he paid his dues.

Confidence isn’t a switch you flip because you feel like it. It’s something you develop over thousands of repetitions. Confidence occurs as the byproduct of developing your skills.

Here’s what you can expect in terms of objective results when you start making approaches:

1,000 approaches get most guys past anxiety.

The next 2,000 get you more comfortable being in the moment.

The next 2,000 after that get you dates with 6’s, 7’s and occasional 8’s, as long as your fashion, accent, body language and fitness are on point.

Once you hit the 5,000+ mark, it becomes almost silly to day game anymore because odds are you’re crushing social circle and night game much harder, because you have a much hotter pool of women to draw from.

“Fake it till you make it” really means perform an action repeatedly until it becomes a habit. You can’t fake an action and expect it to work long-term, but you can keep performing an action until it becomes comfortable.

Let’s take Leverage Program member Joe as a case study. I met him in 2007 at a workshop Robbie was leading in Phoenix. He didn’t sign up, and didn’t reach out again until 2014, when he signed up for the Leverage Program. He spent his first six months in the course downloading lessons into his brain and getting crushed in the group for douchey behavior. He did a great job taking the feedback without getting angry or salty. He lost some weight then grew a cool beard then approached like crazy. Now he’s consistently banging 6’s and the occasional 7+. See how that works guys?

Meaningful life change isn’t something you develop instantly as a result of being motivated. It only comes through baby steps and daily habits. You have to improve your social skills, physiological state, building relationships, and objectively achieve success with women. Focus on getting more reps, but ignore the 10,000 hour rule, because Malcolm Gladwell got it wrong.

Eventually, you’ll get to the point where you have the eye of the tiger. The eye of the tiger is an expression we use for a guy who has a lot confidence, has fucked a lot of women and isn’t intimidated by women.

When you reach this point in your game, you tend to use eye contact as your number one tool for approaching. Women will smell your confidence and you’ll notice them checking you out. You throw a seductive look their way and see how they react. If she gives you love, you walk over and just say hi. It’s often a done deal from there, granted you don’t say anything stupid.

Essentially, being an active member of the Leverage group and hitting on a TON of women will help you develop your eye of the tiger.

True confidence only comes from demonstrated performance. It’s hard to fool your subconscious mind, which is why gimmicks like NLP and positive affirmations are just a band-aid that ultimately fails.

Most guys overestimate how different they are from others. What this means is that you can simply take someone else’s path to success, and emulate it. Take the same actions that they took. Look to your mentors to build your identity. Do what they did. Do what works.

Leverage Testimonials

About

Does any of this sound familiar?
I’m a smart, funny, and cool dude, but when I get around really hot chicks, its like my mind goes blank and my IQ drops 50 points. I can’t think of anything to say … Read More